[richlevy]

Well, I just spend 13 hours at work yesterday. I went in at 11am and came out around midnight.

When I joined this department it was understood that this was part of the job. I do it on average about once every three months with a small team of people to switch on changes to a business system. The free food is pretty good though, with snacks, pizza, and steam trays of chicken and stuffed shells. Of course, if I became observant I would not be able to do it, since these events always happen on Saturdays.

One thing I do like is that our department head was there for most of the day.

After all of the preparation, the actual day goes pretty fast. Watching for problems, checking the system, supporting the users. I was sitting at my desk a lot of the time, but if I had to list exactly what I did I couldn't. Out of the 13 hours, I got to read the newspaper for about 5 minutes and about 10 minutes of surfing the net. I ate at my desk, but exactly what I did for over 12 hours is hard to explain. There was paperwork, checking results, but no additional coding, since no additional changes were made. We downloaded data, printed reports, and dealt with jammed printers. I didn't even eat that much.

When I was on stage I had the same feeling. You really don't remember how much time you spend backstage waiting for your entrance.

I don't look forward to it but I don't hate it. For me it's just part of the job. The key for me is seeing managers putting in the same time. In my department everybody works hard, and on the technical and user sides there are no pure managers. In theory, if there are no system issues or bad data, my job is easier than the users, who have to crunch numbers and check the data online for about 8 or 9 hours. Clients come in and do their own validation, and we wait until they sign off on it. Since everything has to come up on Monday morning, there really is no option for failure.

So I'm home today after getting about 7 hours of sleep. I want to go to a concert at Longwood Gardens today just so I can tell myself I got out and salvaged some of the weekend, but I'm still pretty wiped out.

I'll wait and see.